Fannie Lou Hamer was a woman of little means but great determination. She mobilized hundreds of Black Mississippians to register to vote at a time when Jim Crow had the region in a chokehold. Hamer was harassed, threatened, jailed, and severely assaulted in her attempt to fight racism.
On June 9, 1963, Hamer was arrested and brutally beaten with batons by two Black prisoners at the behest of racist police officers. Hamer bravely shared the harrowing details of this event at the Democratic National Convention in 1964.
READ HAMER’S ENTIRE TESTIMONY HERE.
Hamer is heralded as one of the famed activists coming out of Mississippi and the civil rights movement. The civil rights leader had a down-home, grassroots approach to fighting for equality in the Deep South and was very vocal about voting rights for African Americans.
She died March 14, 1977, at age 59, after aggressively fighting breast cancer.
RELATED CONTENT: Fannie Lou Hamer Was ‘Sick And Tired’ Of Racism, And Sick And Dying Of Breast Cancer
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